On the road with Corvette Racing: Tommy Milner's Autoweek blog

It's never easy to start your racing season with the two hardest races on the calendar. After a very encouraging start to the year for us at Corvette Racing, we headed to Sebring for what is traditionally our first race of the year.

Despite a fulfilling finish at Daytona (fifth place in the GT-Le Mans class), I came away excited for the races ahead. Our still brand-new Corvette C7.Rs were fast, and going back to Sebring with the new car after all of the testing we'd done so far meant we felt really good about the cars we had for the usually bumpy airfield road course.

Sebring is always a special race due to the atmosphere at the track. Many of the fans there are a spectacle in their own right, having built a following themselves for their costumes that can be seen on Friday and elsewhere throughout the campgrounds. It's those traditions that make going to Sebring every year that much more special.

Throughout practice, our Corvettes were plenty fast. We were routinely right at the top of the time sheets with either one of the cars. The comments from us drivers were all pretty similar. We were all happy with the car on the whole and just looking to fine-tune. The testing a month earlier yielded a car that was much better over the bumps through turns one and 17, and improved it elsewhere around the track.

One tradition some of the Corvette drivers have created over the years is going out to turn 10 to watch qualifying and see some of the residents over there. It's rare we ever leave the paddock or pits to see the cars, and it's always pretty eye opening to witness just how fast these cars are on other parts of the track. Oliver Gavin (my co-driver) and Antonio Garcia qualified the C7.Rs at nearly identical lap times -- good for fourth and fifth in class.

Our race was fairly trouble-free for the first half. I had one huge moment coming out of turn 17 when I was tucked up behind Dominik Farnbacher in the SRT Viper. As one LMP Challenge car had crashed hard into the tires, collecting another innocent LMPC car, there was a massive debris field of tires and parts thrown across the track. I was unsighted coming out of 17 and got the call from my crew chief Brian as Dominik was slowing. I think every bit of warning came all at once. Seeing the crash, hearing the call, and seeing the car ahead slow massively. It wasn't looking good.

I went for the brakes quickly but also got a bit of throttle, so I had to come off the brakes and reapply. This put me far too close to the Viper and still going far too fast. I'm still not 100 percent sure how I didn't hit the Viper. I know from talking to Viper driver Marc Goossens that Dom saw me coming quickly -- and had he not seen me and held his line, we absolutely would have had a huge accident there. That was some heads-up driving from him for sure.

Late in the race, after a couple strong stints, we were poised for a great finish. However, just like at Daytona, a late mechanical problem killed that chance. Oliver fought the car with two hours to go to bring it home and get more valuable points, finishing sixth. Our teammates in the No. 3 car, also right in the thick of it toward the end of the race, had a similar problem and finished eighth.

So, we've had two races where we've shown the Corvette to be competitive but just coming up a bit short. We solved the issues from Daytona and now we'll move fast to solve the issue from Sebring. That's all a part of the process everyone goes through with new cars.

Next, we head to Long Beach for a short sprint race where there will undoubtedly be some more fantastic racing.

Editor's note: Autoweek Editor at Speed Tommy Milner, 28, of Lake Mary, Fla., joined Corvette Racing in 2011 as a full-season driver in the No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R. He realized his potential quickly, winning the GTE Pro class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with co-drivers Olivier Beretta and Antonio Garcia. Milner made the pass for the lead and then completed his stint in treacherous, wet conditions before handing off to Garcia for the final laps in the world's most famous sports-car race.

A second-generation racer, Milner is the son of noted team owner Tom Milner. He has competed in formula- and sports-car series with distinction and has driven for factory-affiliated teams representing Panoz, Porsche and BMW. Milner and Corvette Racing co-driver Oliver Gavin won the 2012 ALMS GT drivers' championship, and finished third in the standings in 2013. This season, he teams once again with Gavin in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship.